A few photos - Critiques encouraged...

PhotographyByThePope · May 28, 2013

Here are just a few images i have taken.
I am a new photographer and so my technique/skill/expertise etc are not going to be top form; however, i do like these photos.

My Facebook page is this: https://www.facebook.com/PhotographyByThePope

I would love it if i could get a few likes and shares, it would seriously help

PeterN · May 28, 2013

The photos are nice. I like the last one more, because it has more sense/story for me. The rest are more concentrated on a subject than on its relations with viewer IMHO.

PhotographyByThePope · May 28, 2013

PeterN said:
The photos are nice. I like the last one more, because it has more sense/story for me. The rest are more concentrated on a subject than on its relations with viewer IMHO.

Thank you PeterN, to be honest, the last one has also always been my favourite, i guess it made it better seeing as i was on the phone at the time of taking the photograph too! ;-)

ronlane · May 28, 2013

Question for you. Why are you just joining this site and coming in with multiple posts hyping your facebook site and asking everyone to like and share you? That's a little pushy isn't it? Most people on TPF are photographers so I do not see why they would feel the need to market someone else's work instead of their own.

Your enthuiasm is applauded, just not sure this will be beneficial for you. I'd rather ask you this and get your focus in the right direction. Good luck.

PhotographyByThePope · May 28, 2013

ronlane said:
Question for you. Why are you just joining this site and coming in with multiple posts hyping your facebook site and asking everyone to like and share you? That's a little pushy isn't it? Most people on TPF are photographers so I do not see why they would feel the need to market someone else's work instead of their own.

Your enthuiasm is applauded, just not sure this will be beneficial for you. I'd rather ask you this and get your focus in the right direction. Good luck.

I guess i was hoping that people might also like to help someone out, rather than just focus on their own work. It would be nice to think that, but i guess in reality, people only care about themselves...

ronlane · May 28, 2013

There are a lot of people on this site that want to help out others. They are very giving of their time and knowledge about photography. My point in asking you this question is for you to consider when you are promoting your site and your business, you need to consider the return on it. Is your aggressiveness going to bring in clients or run them off?

Stick around a while and make the judgement yourself about the people on this site and how helpful they are. Be open minded about what they have to say and be willing to do or not do certain things as experiments.

amolitor · May 28, 2013

These are definitely pretty OK photos. The first one has pretty shallow depth of field for this photograph, which we've seen a lot of. The shallow DoF might make it a little different? I'm not sure how I feel about it. You've cut off the crown a bit on the edges, though, it needs more horizontal room.

The second one isn't anything much. You had an idea, and that's good, but the result isn't worth anything. The star trails are nice, and the aircraft cutting across them is a nice touch, but the bonfire is rendered as a smudge and all the stuff on the ground is just a clutter of unappealing stuff. Can you imagine printing this and putting it on your wall? Would you use it as a background on the computer screen? I'm sure you LIKE it, but can you imagine a use for it that you'd actually like?

The third is a perfectly nice picture of a bug. It's slightly soft, but whatever. It's a bug picture, and a pretty decent one. Bug pictures do zip for me, but lots of people like them. Unfortunately for you, most of those people like razor sharp bugs. It's kind of a thing, taking fuzzy pictures of tiny things is pretty easy, so there's a premium placed on SHARP.

The last one is quite lovely. I really like the linear ripple on the water in the middle of the frame, it's a lovely touch. On the down side, when you make it bigger you notice that there are wires strung over the water and a bunch of radio? electrical? towers on the background horizon. It's also a bit soft, but soft can be OK in landscapes. It's a soft and moody scene, so I think soft works ok here.

What I am not seeing here is any kind of vision. What I am seeing is decent but not brilliant copies of photographs we've seen quite a lot of. Done with a touch more artistic flair and better technique, these would be candidates for flickr's explore -- whatever you make of that particular accolade. Opinions vary, to put it mildly.

There's nothing wrong with trying to emulate photos you like, it's a great exercise and it's perfectly reasonable that simply doing that would satisfy you fully. No problem. You can up your game by making these things sharper and punchier, and you can up your game by being more picky about things like cropping, wires across the lake, and so on. This will get you up to "flickr explore" level, which is a pretty high standard for a certain kind of photography.

If emulating photographs that have been made before many times is NOT going to float your boat forever, you're going to have to ALSO work at creative ideas and making something more distinctly your own.

timor · May 28, 2013

Just to applaud Amolitor - :salute::salute:. Fine analysis and good advice. I have no idea how our "likes" on Facebook should help you with upping your photographic skiils, but staying here and getting comments like this above made by people who are talking, breathing and sleeping photography could be quite beneficial. TPF has a number of such a people, lifelong photographers and I mean serious, trained professionals.

The_Traveler · May 28, 2013

amolitor said:
These are definitely pretty OK photos.

What I am not seeing here is any kind of vision. What I am seeing is decent but not brilliant copies of photographs we've seen quite a lot of. Done with a touch more artistic flair and better technique, these would be candidates for flickr's explore -- whatever you make of that particular accolade. Opinions vary, to put it mildly.

There's nothing wrong with trying to emulate photos you like, it's a great exercise and it's perfectly reasonable that simply doing that would satisfy you fully. No problem. You can up your game by making these things sharper and punchier, and you can up your game by being more picky about things like cropping, wires across the lake, and so on. This will get you up to "flickr explore" level, which is a pretty high standard for a certain kind of photography.

What Andy isn't saying - but might be thinking - is that virtually everyone who works at photography at all goes through these stages.
Liking your FB page isn't helping your photography and that's what we care about.

Do better pictures.

PhotographyByThePope · May 28, 2013

Thank you very much Amoitor for your critique, you really helped me see a lot to improve on my photos.

And - Travellor, to be honest, i think i posted my link because i wanted likes :/ i wanted to get more people to like it thinking that would make me better, but you're right: likes dont make them better, it may make my ego better, but not my photos. This is ultimately what i want to improve so thank you

ronlane · May 28, 2013

^ +1. Very well said OP.

The_Traveler · May 28, 2013

PhotographyByThePope said:
Thank you very much Amoitor for your critique, you really helped me see a lot to improve on my photos.

And - Travellor, to be honest, i think i posted my link because i wanted likes :/ i wanted to get more people to like it thinking that would make me better, but you're right: likes dont make them better, it may make my ego better, but not my photos. This is ultimately what i want to improve so thank you

No problem.
It's a really good feeling to get any kind of approbation but in this situation, it would be, a hollow victory.
The best way to get better is to learn to look at your own pictures, understand what about them isn't good enough and work on fixing them.
Eventually you will develop your own interests, your own style and skills; then you will also know that the 'likes' either here or anywhere are real.

A good way to start is to take one of your picture, look at it hard, figure out what is good and what isn't, then post it here and tell people what you think.
Those responses will help.